Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/160

 148 o much in nature as in name: for although ome be called copyholders, ome cutomary, ome tenants by the virge, ome bae tenants, ome bond tenants, and ome by one name and ome by another, yet do they all agree in ubtance and kind of tenure: all the aid lands are holden in one general kind, that is, by cutom and continuance of time; and the diverity of their names doth not alter the nature of their tenure."

every copyhold tenant being therefore thus tenant at the will of the lord according to the cutom of the manor; which cutoms differ as much as the humour and temper of the repective antient lords, (from whence we may account for their great variety) uch tenant, I ay, may have, o far as the cutom warrants, any other of the etates or quantities of interet, which we have hitherto conidered, or may hereafter conider, to hold united with this cutomary etate at will. A copyholder may, in many manors, be tenant in fee-imple, in fee-tail, for life, by the curtey, in dower, for years, at ufferance, or on condition; ubject however to be deprived of thee etates upon the concurrence of thoe circumtances which the will of the lord, promulged by immemorial cutom, has declared to be a forfeiture or abolute determination of thoe interets; as in ome manors the want of iue male, in others the cutting down timber, the non-payment of a fine, and the like. Yet none of thee interets amount to freehold; for the freehold of the whole manor abides always in the lord only, who hath granted out the ue and occupation, but not the corporal eiin or true poeion, of certain parts and parcels thereof, to thee his cutomary tenants at will.

reaon of originally granting out this complicated kind of interet, o that the ame man hall, with regard to the ame land, be at one and the ame time tenant in fee-imple and alo tenant at the lord's will, eems to have arien from the nature of villenage tenure; in which a grant of any etate of freehold, or Rh